ul Islam
.The people of Delhi called him
Mir-e-Delhi
(Lord of Delhi).According
to Ziauddin Barni, he often visited the Sultan and did not hesitate to criticize
the non-Islamic customs of the court.
He believed that Islam could be protected only when the rulers followed
its principles, and that a ruler who followed these principles would be
raised with the prophets and the saints on the Day of Judgement.The rulers,
he felt, should practice
din-panahi
or ‘the protection of the Islamic way of
life’ and see to it that the commands of the
shariah
were observed. Sins,
debauchery and adultery should not be tolerated. Offenders should be
ruthlessly punished.The pious should be entrusted with the duty to enforce
the
shariah
and the officers appointed to carry out this task should be well
versed in both the
shariah
and the
tariqa
. He was against philosophers. He
felt that their teachings should be prohibited in the territories under Islam.
He believed that justice should be rigorously dispensed and that the tyrants
should be overthrown. He seems to have been an extremist who could not
tolerate anything but orthodox Islam. He even went to the extent of saying
that those rulers who did not follow the principles enumerated by him
risked damnation in the Hereafter, and that prayer and fasting alone was
not going to benefit them.
It is said that he performed
hajj
twelve times. He was in Delhi during
the reign of Sultan Iltutmish when he was offered the post of
Sadr us Sudur
,
which he accepted. But after two years, he resigned and devoted the rest of
his life to spiritual exercises.
The Spiritual Descendents of Bahauddin Zakariya
In Multan, Bahauddin Zakariya was succeeded by his son, Shaykh
Sadruddin, (d.1286), known as Arif, or ‘gnostic’. A disciple of Shaykh
Sadruddin compiled the
malfuzaat
of his teacher and called it
Kunuz’l Fawa’id
.
